This summer’s Congressional battles on both health care and climate change/energy have been very illuminating of the state of American politics today.
One takeaway: When you accept the premise that “half a loaf is better than none,” you’re likely to end up with nothing but crumbs.
Both debates demonstrate several realities on Capitol Hill: Big-business lobbyists still call the tune; any reasonable idea gets quickly and loudly shouted down by the great right-wing noise machine; and the Democrats who control both houses of Congress and the presidency remain beholden to the former and terrified of the latter. They are therefore willing to compromise every principle in pursuit of a false pragmatism that just wants to get something done, no matter how inadequate. Talk about snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.
I’ll start with health care reform since it has gotten all the attention lately. Many had hoped that Congress would get something done before summer recess. But things got bogged down by Blue Dog Dems, the ever-intransigent Republican minority, a right-wing scare campaign about “socialized medicine” (and now, government “death panels”), and of course the enormously well-funded insurance & pharmaceutical lobbies, which pay both Blue Dogs and Repugs to do their bidding.
Keith Olberman did a great job of name-checking many of our Congresscritters on this score recently. But for the most part, corporate media are part of the problem, holding no one accountable and shedding little light on how the system is broken and what would fix it.
Despite the fact that any sober analysis shows that the best way to reduce costs and expand coverage is to remove private insurance from the equation through a single-payer system, and despite the widespread support single-payer enjoys in both the medical community and general public, single-payer was declared “off-the-table” before the debate began, due to the forces described above. Consequently, any program considered is going to be much more complicated and costly than necessary.
Many liberals just shrug their shoulders at this state of affairs. It’s just How Things Work in politics. Of course business lobbies have a lot of clout. Of course corporate media will fail to clarify the real issues involved. Politics is the “art of the possible” and so Democrats in Congress can only do what’s possible within narrow parameters. We can’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. We must be realistic, pragmatic, and just Get Something Done. Half a loaf is better than none.
So liberals diligently ask their representatives in Congress to preserve a public option and improve regulatory oversight over the insurance industry. Give the insurance industry some of what it wants, but not too much. It’s all about compromise.
Meanwhile, the far-Right tea-party protesters, who have no concern whatsoever for being realistic, are storming public meetings and influencing the debate far out of proportion to their actual numbers. These crazed foot-soldiers, along with right-wing media pundits and industry lobbyists, are setting the terms of the debate, so much so that Business Week on Aug. 7 declared, “The Health Insurers Have Already Won.”
Which means, of course, that the rest of us lose.
The whole Congressional debate around the climate crisis and energy reform follows a similar pattern, the main distinction being that the consequences of failure will be much more cataclysmic. As I wrote in a recent article, fossil fools still rule. The fossil fuel lobby is as massive as the health insurance industry — ExxonMobil alone spent more on lobbying than the entire clean energy industry, about $15 million in the last six months alone. Thanks to the clout of the fossil fuel lobby, far more money is allocated to the coal industry in the “American Clean Energy and Security Act” than to all clean, renewable energy development combined.
The energy bill so far has followed a sadly predictable trajectory: Beginning with an Obama proposal that already fell short of what climate scientists have said is necessary, a weaker version was then introduced into the House. Concessions to industry were made to get the bill out of committee; many more were made to get the bill passed on the House floor, resulting in a sprawling abomination of a bill the NASA climate scientist James Hansen has called “an astoundingly inefficient way to get a tiny reduction of emissions.” The bill, he declares, is “less than worthless, because it will delay by at least a decade starting on a path that is fundamentally sound from the standpoints of both economics and climate preservation.” And that’s even before the bill has arrived in the Senate, where it is expected to get further larded up with concessions to the fossil fuel industry.
So goes the compromise game. Start with half a loaf; give away half of that; repeat. Soon you’re left with nothing but crumbs. With Democrats controlling the White House and enjoying strong majorities in both the House and the Senate, is this really the best we can expect?
Maybe. It all depends.
The array of forces against meaningful reform is formidable and relentless. How will progressives—and all people with basic common sense—respond?
We know that over the last three decades corporate lobbyists have strengthened their grip on government, and the Right has been systematically building a vast network of advocacy organizations and media institutions. And we’ve seen that a significant constituency exists of frightened, uninformed people easily manipulated by the latter to advocate for the interests of the former, even when it directly contradicts their own self-interests.
Those nutty people. Right now they’re kicking our asses and we should be ashamed.
Why hasn’t it been single-payer advocates storming town halls with our insolent questions? Why are we so complacent in allowing a minority of the population to continue to set the tone of the debate?
So what’s a realistic pragmatist to do?
First, let’s get real. The opportunity for national health care reform is too big and too important to dither away to politics-as-usual. Medical costs are crippling our economy and health care policies are a matter of life or death for multitudes of Americans.
The urgency of energy reform to address the climate crisis cannot be overstated — the fate of people, animals, and plants around the entire planet Earth is at risk.
That, to me, is what realism looks like.
A pragmatic response? Begin with advocating what we really want and think is right, instead of some already watered-down approach. Why has MoveOn been exhorting its 4 million members to support a public option instead of supporting single-payer?
It’s as if liberals and progressives have been out of power so long they’ve forgotten how to set the agenda, and continue to allow the right-wing minority to do that. Stop reacting and take control. The first four campaigns currently on MoveOn’s website are fighting back against right-wing health care lies, pressuring Blue Dogs, investigating “Rovian” political tactics, and debunking the “birthers.” How’s that for forward thinking? Sarah Palin utters two words and gets more media attention to non-existent “death panels” than has been devoted to examining a single-payer option. Pathetic.
Next, recognize that the only way to counter the formidable forces against meaningful reform is to mobilize a large, broad, strong, smart, and vocal constituency to exert popular pressure in favor. Much of that constituency already exists, it just needs to be motivated and mobilized.
If we want meaningful reform, we need to throw a bigger tea party.
As usual, they’ve got the money and resources, we’ve got the numbers. And increasingly, progressives are building stronger resources in terms of advocacy organizations and media. And we’ve got, well, reality and rational argument on our side, which should still count for something, even in today’s “through-the-looking-glass” world of political discourse. And, for the first time in at least 15 years, we’ve got a federal government at least potentially receptive to progressive, reality-based proposals.
What seems lacking is a “fire in the belly” and focus on seizing the opportunity. Let’s remember what’s at stake. As motivation, we need the promise of more than just crumbs. We need deep reforms of both our health care system and our energy systems.
To aspire to anything less would simply be unrealistic.
Single-payer health care advocacy:
http://www.singlepayeraction.org/
http://www.unitedforhealthcare.org/
Climate/clean energy advocacy:
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